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Global Projects

Each of our project teams—whether studying the effects of indoor air quality on neonatal health or developing a global database for city and regional food policies—is comprised of researchers across disciplines working collaboratively with government officials, NGOs, and practitioners. What results is a comprehensive, solution-oriented process to improve equity in global health and well-being.

With a projected 10 million deaths per year, antimicrobial resistant pathogens are predicted to be the leading cause of death worldwide by 2050. Pharmaceutical development cannot keep pace with the problem. To combat these threats before they reach cities, hospitals, and homes, we work with international partners such as the icddr,b seeking out and deterring resilient pathogens in the farms, aquacultures, wastewaters, and other ecologies from which they spread.

The leading environmental health hazard is air pollution. While this and other toxins in food and the environment have proven especially threatening in the first 1,000 days of life, little is known about the cumulative, life-course effects on physical and mental health. To illuminate the “exposome” – the totality of cultural, nutritional, and environmental exposures – we investigate intersections between biomarkers and geo-markers, daily routines and family histories, prenatal care and life-long habits.

Despite producing 70% of the world’s food, small-scale farmers remain undernourished, as do their neighbors throughout the Global South. Improving food security cannot be done by increasing agricultural production alone; a systems approach is needed to advance access to nutritious, culturally meaningful food. To cultivate food equity, we work with both local stakeholders, such as farm operators, and international influencers, like the UNFAO, studying, developing, and implementing cross-sector policies-in-action.

The 800 million people with disabilities living in low- and middle-income countries experience inequities in access to education, employment, and social services. While unjust policies and social stigmas impede progress, the lack of safe and accessible water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities is crippling. To empower girls, children with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations toward self-efficacy, we collaborate with global organizations like UNICEF, building socially inclusive policies, tools, and environments.

Providing food, water, and shelter is critical to the welfare of the world’s 65 million forcibly displaced people; so too is health care. Medical translation services address language barriers, but do not support a culturally engaged continuum of care. To ensure refugee wellbeing, we join the best practices of clinicians with the hands-on work of community organizations, fostering an integration of both knowledge and services.

Approximately 17,000 children die worldwide every day, 44% of which occur in the first month of life, often from preventable causes. Effective medical, behavioral, and social interventions exist, yet scalability – working across borders and sectors – remains a challenge. To nurture vulnerable children into healthy adulthood, we join global initiatives, such as those led by USAID, helping to deliver effective practices, to mothers, babies, and their caregivers in clinics and at home.

Our Partnerships

We partner with research bodies, dissemination organizations, policy makers and implementers, and professional/practitioner organizations to address the challenge of global health inequity in innovative, transdisciplinary, and solution-oriented ways.

Our Paradigm

The Community for Global Health Equity's aim is to support the entities who most influence global health—to assistthe leaders, organizations, and policy makers that can reduce or eliminate barriers to improved global health and well-being for all in settings around the world.

We have organized our global projects using an underlying paradigm to improve equity. Any one of our affiliated faculty members might be working at any specific point along this paradigm (characterization, design, translation, etc.) as well as within varied contexts (individual vs. societal vs. global).